


what you said you were, when you met me

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Just a little angst, Phil Coulson: human disaster, a post-3x10 fic written post-3x09, prepare for this to be immediately jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's time to make a choice," Daisy tells him. "You have to decide where to go from here."</p><p>It's not what he expected her to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what you said you were, when you met me

When Daisy enters his bunk, Coulson doesn't say a word, doesn't even look up. She's never been in here before, looks around with obvious interest. Trails her fingers along the edge of his dresser, sits down on the edge of his bed, leans back easily and considers him for one long moment.

"Coming back into public any time soon?" she asks, and he shrugs, one shoulder rising and falling. Daisy's silent for a moment, fiddles with his comforter.

"It's not exactly like I have an office," he says, can't stand the silence, and she huffs a short laugh.

"No," she says, "that's true. Director's privilege, that one. Although I see you've still got a bigger bunk than everyone else.  _And_ your own bathroom." Coulson twists his mouth up in something that could almost be a smile, rubs his hand over the rasp of his unshaven chin.

"Why are you here?" he asks her, genuinely curious. He's been alone for almost two weeks, moldering in his own silence and regret. He wants Daisy to leave again. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to do anything.

"It's time to make a choice," Daisy tells him. "You have to decide where to go from here."

It's not what he expected her to say.

 

 

It's not like he can just pick it all up and start again. He doesn't know whether he even wants to. He hunches into himself, looks down at his hands - his  _hand_ , he corrects himself, the prosthetic's still in another solar system - and knows he's frowning.

"You haven't asked for the Director role back," Daisy says very carefully. "Thought you'd pick back up as soon as you got home. I never thought of you as a quitter, Coulson." It stings, and he suspects it's meant to, meant to needle him out of his own thoughts and into a conversation.

"I never asked for that role in the first place," he tells her, and Daisy raises her eyebrows, looks coolly at him.

"Well," she says, "perhaps that's for the best, then."

"What are you saying?" Coulson demands. "That Mack's not going to hand back over command?"

"He and May are talking about sharing it," Daisy says easily, as if it's not a blow, as if he hadn't been waiting for the ax to fall. "Working as co-Directors, with Weaver running Council oversight. Sharing the load."  _The way you should have_ goes unsaid but Coulson hears it regardless.

"I don't deserve it anyway," he tells Daisy, and she rolls her eyes.

"Who are you, Phil," Daisy says. "This isn't you. This guy, this vigilante crossing all the lines, this isn't the man I met."

"I've always crossed lines for you," Coulson says, stung, and Daisy nods thoughtfully.

"That's true enough," she agrees. "For the team. But you've done it for the right reasons before now. You think this revenge mission was for the right reasons?"

It wasn't. Even while he was in the middle of it, he knew it wasn't for any of the right reasons. It was driven by emotion, driven by desperation, and in the end, it put everyone at risk. Daisy's still got a bruise livid down the side of her face. He can't even look at it.

 

 

He doesn't know what he'd do without SHIELD on his shoulders. He could - go  _home_ , he thinks wryly, escape it all. He could start another splinter SHIELD. He could challenge Mack and May for leadership.

He could try again as Director, if he thought he deserved it.

"It's my fault," he says, "everything that went wrong, it's my  _fault_. Rosalind's death, and- I don't know how to sit with that. I don't know how to not be this."

"So leave," Daisy shrugs, and it's enough to shock Coulson out of his silence.

"What- why would I- I'm not going to  _leave_ ," he snaps. Daisy frowns, leans back against the wall, tugs at a fraying thread on her cuff in silence for a long moment. Waits him out. "Why would I leave," he says again, quieter, and she shrugs again.

"You're no good to us like this," she tells him simply. "You can't keep doing this and stay. The team won't accept it."

"What is this," Coulson says, more sullenly than he wants to. "A coup? You've already taken over the Director's position, why would you even still want me on the team?"

"You want it to be?" Daisy asks, her eyes sharp. "You want us to push you out that way? You want me to  _make it an order_ , Phil?"

"Why not," he mutters. "It happened before."

"It did," Daisy says. "You got a second chance. You're big on those. And this is us giving you a  _third_ , Phil, and I don't even think you understand-" She pauses, bites her lip, pulls herself back from whatever she was about to say, looks down at the bedspread.

"What don't I understand?" he asks. "What don't I understand, Daisy?"

She glances up at him. "I don't have rank in the team," she says. "I'm leader of my own team, now, but I don't have rank in SHIELD like Bobbi, I don't have pull with Agent Weaver the way she and Mack do. I don't have history with you like May does. You didn't even wonder why it's  _me_ doing this?"

He hadn't even thought about it. Daisy coming to him, Daisy breaking the silence, Daisy discussing this with careful, watchful honesty, it'd felt so natural.

"You're the only one who thinks I deserve it," he realizes. "You're the only one who volunteered to talk me down."

"You gave me a second chance, once," Daisy says. "More than once. Trusted me when I shouldn't have been trusted. Backed me when I couldn't even back myself. Protected me when I needed it. You never let me down. You think I wouldn't do that for you in a heartbeat?"

"I just need you to be my friend right now," Coulson remembers, and Daisy smiles very slow, blinks back tears.

"Phil," she whispers, "you think I've ever been anything else?"

 

 

"I can't be the Director," he says, feeling impossibly tired. "But I..."

"I've been thinking," Daisy murmurs after a long pause. "I need someone to help run Secret Warriors. A strategist, someone running back-end so I can stay in the field."

"You have a place on your team?"

"I have a place on my team," Daisy confirms, looks up, gives him the tiniest of smiles. "After all, you promoted my old partner out from under me. You'd need to follow my lead. Obey my orders."

"Mack didn't follow your orders," Coulson says just to be contrary, and Daisy's smile gets a little wider.

" _Mack_ doesn't need to  _follow my orders_ , because we work on things together," she points out. "So, you think you can work with me, or do I have to be all strict and authoritarian, make you call me Agent Johnson?"

"Would you?" Coulson asks. "Make me call you that?"

"Phil," she says more gently, "I couldn't even make you call me Daisy for the longest time." He blushes, shifts a little, and she pushes her hair back, opens her mouth and then closes it as if she can't decide whether to speak.

"Something on your mind?" he asks, and she flushes herself, tucks her hair back again.

"When I joined SHIELD," she tells him, "Agent Coulson was tender, and kind, and  _oh_ , Phil, I wanted to be like him so much. If that was what SHIELD was like, I wanted in."

"We've changed," he says, low and sad. "Everything's different now. Everything's  _harder_ now."

"I know, Phil, I know it is, but you- you could still be him, you know. You can still hold on to that. You're our humanity, Coulson, you're our heart."

"I grew a new heart," he says, gazes at her. "I grew a new heart just in time for you."

"Yeah," she agrees. "Yeah, you did. It'd be a pity to throw that all away, right?"

It would. It would be a pity. Coulson's worked so hard to rebuild his walls, to harden himself like he did before, and it hurts, and it's so irrelevant to what he needs, to what they need. The way Daisy's looking at him, like he could be that man again, it's everything.

"What do you say?" she asks. "Agent Coulson?"

"Yeah," Phil agrees, "yeah, Daisy, Agent Coulson sounds good. Sounds cool."

"You always were cool, AC," she teases, brushes her fingers against his, and this time, he doesn't pull away. This time, he uncurls his hand, lets her slide her fingers into his. This time, he lets her in.

**Author's Note:**

> title from Daughter 'Medicine'
> 
> follow me on tumblr if you want: notcaycepollard.tumblr.com


End file.
